We talked a few months ago about my affinity for light bulbs, but I failed to mention Simon’s love for the dimmer switch. I confess – I haven’t given much thought to our light switches or outlets as they’re primarily form and no function.  Legrand released Adorne, a new line of customizable switches, dimmers, wall plates and outlets and sent us a few to see what we thought.  I think Simon might’ve been more excited than I was about how it all turned out!

But I have to say that my detail-loving heart is pretty thrilled with the finished product. I got to choose from a variety of looks to match our decor in the kitchen/family room. You can choose a more traditional switch or go with a push button and then add your custom wall plate (we went with mirror white but how amazing is this satin bronze if you’ve already got bronze or brass accents?). But the cool thing is how functional they are – you can also add USB outlets (no more jonesing for outlets to charge those devices!) or nightlights, or even pop-out outlets (perfect for babyproofing – ahem, I’m looking at YOU, Archer Shingleton).

It took me a little while to figure out what would work best for our particular needs. One thing I liked was that you could pick different types of switches – both a traditional flip switch and a push button. I wanted two different types of switches on our double gang set that run the overhead lights in the kitchen and the garbage disposal as I’m always flipping the wrong switch when I’m standing at the kitchen sink. Something that you could merely feel and know the difference between the two.  But beyond that, the ability to customize the plates to meet your particular aesthetic is pretty fantastic. The plates we chose are sleek and feel really high end. I feel like it’s upgraded the whole space with such a simple detail.

I made sure we had plenty of USB outlets in the kitchen as we tend to charge our various devices there. And I keep standing in the breakfast nook and pushing the on and off button over and over again. It’s just so crazy cool.

For the door into the kitchen from the laundry room, I went with the sofTap dimmer switch as well as in the family room. I like that they both stay softly lit at all times so even in the dark it’s easy to find them.

And for the outdoor lights, I went with the slightly more traditional Whisper Switch. If you want something with a timer (also a good fit for outdoor lights possibly?), you could go with the SensaSwitch, which you can use to customize the length of time it stays on. There’s also a Wave Switch, which means you wave your hand in front of it to turn on your lights, but I worried it would drive me batty. Or that the kids would make me crazy waving all the live long day.

I’m kind of inspired to do it through the rest of the house now as I really love how this simple change turned out. Especially once I get a chandelier in the dining room (again with the dimmer switch for Simon – haha).  Thanks to Legrand for sending the new outlets and switches to test out!